Francesca Trivellato, "The Promise and Peril of Credit" (Princeton UP, 2019)

06/07/19 • 62 min

In 1647, the French author Étienne Cleirac asserted in his book Les us, et coustumes de la mer that the credit instruments known as bills of exchange had been invented by Jews. In The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society (Princeton University Press, 2019), Francesca Trivellato draws upon the economic, cultural, intellectual, and business history of the period to trace the origin of this myth and what its usage in early modern Europe reveals about contemporary views of both commerce and Judaism. Trivellato begins by explaining the development of bills of exchange in the Middle Ages as a means of transferring funds across long distances, ones which helped the expansion of international trade. Though used by both Christians and Jews, concerns about crypto-Judaism among converted Christians in the town of Bordeaux where Cleirac lived may have been key to his belief in their association with the bills. From Cheirac’s book the myth then spread throughout much of western and central Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, where it was used both to support anti-Semitic views and as examples by philo-Semitic writers such as Montesquieu of the superior commercial ability of Jews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Previous Episode

Richard Averbeck, "Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research" (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019)

For some two hundred years now, Pentateuchal scholarship has been dominated by the Documentary Hypothesis, a paradigm made popular by Julius Wellhausen. Recent decades, however, have seen mounting critiques of the old paradigm, from a variety of specializations, not only in Biblical Studies, but also in the fields of Assyriology, Legal History, and Linguistics. In a recent international meeting, scholars across these fields came together and presented papers, each one calling for a paradigm change in Pentateuchal research. Join us as we speak with one of those scholars, Richard Averbeck, about his contribution to Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, edited by M. Armgardt, B. Kilchör, M. Zehnder (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019)—his chapter is titled ‘Reading the Torah in a Better Way.’

Richard Averbeck teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His areas of expertise include Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch, ancient Near Eastern history and languages, Old Testament criticism, Hebrew, and biblical counseling. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, the American Oriental Society, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015). He can be reached at [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Next Episode

Matilda Rabinowitz, "Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century" (ILR Press, 2017)

It’s quite common these days to hear young people being urged to collect and record the stories of their grandparents or parents in order to learn and preserve their family’s history. For a few fortunate folks, like Robbin Légère Henderson, such a record already exists. Henderson’s maternal grandmother, Matilda Rabinowitz, penned her own memoir before her passing in 1963 so that her grandchildren would know her history. With candor and wit, Rabinowitz, born in 1887 in Ukraine, described her experiences as an immigrant, factory worker, single mother by choice, and union organizer. In Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century (ILR Press 2017), Henderson has expanded her grandmother’s memoir with her own commentary and original black-and-white scratchboard drawings that illustrate Rabinowitz’s early life, journey to America, political awakening, work as an IWW organizer, turbulent romance to Henderson’s grandfather, and her struggle to support herself and her child. To hear more about this unique collaboration across generations, listen to my interview with artist, curator, and author Robbin Légère Henderson. Interested listeners can also learn more about Rabinowitz through a new exhibit at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit, where Rabinowitz once organized a Studebaker strike.

Carrie Lane is a Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton and author of A Company of One: Insecurity, Independence, and the New World of White-Collar Unemployment (Cornell University Press, 2011). Her research concerns the changing nature of work in the contemporary U.S. She is currently writing a book on the professional organizing industry. To contact her or to suggest a recent title, email [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies